Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.| Romans 3:19–20
We spent some time Sunday talking about the Old Testament law as a whole, in preparation for going through the Ten Commandments over the next three months. One of the structures that I presented was a breakdown of the law into three parts: moral, ceremonial, and civil (judicial). This way of viewing the law is laid out clearly in the London Baptist Confession, in a chapter titled: Of the Law of God, which says:
Besides this law, commonly called moral, God was pleased to give to the people of Israel ceremonial laws, containing several typical ordinances, partly of worship, prefiguring Christ, his graces, actions, sufferings, and benefits; and partly holding forth divers instructions of moral duties, all which ceremonial laws being appointed only to the time of reformation, are, by Jesus Christ the true Messiah and only law-giver, who was furnished with power from the Father for that end abrogated and taken away.
To them also he gave sundry judicial laws, which expired together with the state of that people, not obliging any now by virtue of that institution; their general equity only being of moral use. LBC, 19.3,4
This breakdown exists in most of the Reformed confessions in one way or another, leading many to categorize this as an idea born out of the Reformation. While they did right about it, this viewpoint existed well before they did. We see it in the Summa Theologica, by Thomas Aquinas:
We must therefore distinguish three kinds of precept in the Old Law; ‘moral’ precepts, which are dictated by the natural law; ‘ceremonial’ precepts, which are determinations of the Divine worship; and ‘judicial’ precepts, which are determinations of the justice to be maintained among men.
Long before Aquinas, Augustine saw the need to draw distinctions between the laws that God gave to His people at Sinai. He wrote:
For example, ‘Thou shalt not covet’ is a moral precept; ‘Thou shalt circumcise every male on the eighth day’ is a symbolical precept.
Even before Augustine, some of the earlier Christians, such as Tertullian and Justin Martyr, were grappling with how to understand the differences present in the statutes of God. Why am I giving you this history lesson? In the last century there was some pushback against this way of ordering the law. Based on the fact that the law is not listed in these three categories, some see these as a human construct being imposed on the text. I want to answer that challenge as well as give some guidance on how to use this structure.
There are truths that are present in Scripture that require some work to accurately understand. Two examples of this would be the hypostatic union of Christ (fully God/fully man) and the Trinity. Neither of these are fully laid out in a single place in the Bible; they are built out of how the Bible describes the nature of Christ and of God throughout. In an article for The Gospel Coalition, Justin Dillehay points out that this structure does not come from outside of the Bible, but within (using the Trinity as an example):
The traditional threefold division of the law isn’t an attempt to arbitrarily cut up what was originally a seamless whole. Instead, like the threefold distinction between the persons of the Trinity, it’s an effort to allow Scripture to interpret Scripture and to integrate its teaching into a meaningful whole.
Though three categories of the OT law are not laid out, we are told that Gentile Christians don’t need to be circumcised (Acts 15:10-11),
that sacrifices were not God’s ultimate aim (Hosea 6:6), and that the dietary laws no longer separate God’s people from those who are not (Colossians 2:16-17).
On the last one, we see that even as some of the dietary laws were given, it was made clear that this was not a universal law, but one that was confined to Israel. In Deuteronomy 14:21 it says:
You shall not eat anything that has died naturally. You may give it to the sojourner who is within your towns, that he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner. For you are a people holy to the LORD your God.
While God deemed it unclean for His people, it was not something that was evil in itself (or He would not have affirmed the act of giving it to someone else). This same law that separates in the Old Testament (between Jew and Gentile), is removed in the New Testament to unite these formerly divided people (as God grafts in people from every tribe and nation). This is how it is stated in Ephesians 2:14–16:
For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.
Jesus made it clear that He did not come to abolish the law, yet here it is stated that His death did just that. How is this possible? Jesus sees a difference between the ordinances (civil and ceremonial law) and the natural (moral) law that is eternal. He fulfills both, one as the substance that the shadow was holding a place for and the other by living the moral law perfectly to be the atoning sacrifice for the sin of His people. The question then becomes: how do we decide what gets put into each category?
The three questions that are used to determine which laws are universal, moral laws are:
1. Was it restated in the New Testament? If Jesus (or the other NT writers) made the point of reaffirming a law, then it should still be upheld by the people of God.
2. Was it designed into creation? Since God placed morality into the world, the seeds of the moral law can be seen in what has been made.
3. Can people in all times/cultures be expected to follow? Some of the OT law is very specific to agrarian culture and ancient relational dynamics. We can see that these were meant for a very specific people, not everyone throughout time.
These questions help us to determine what laws given by God are eternal. This does not mean that it is obvious or easy. Even with a common rubric, people come to different conclusions, with some seeing far more as natural law than others. The point is not to be right, but to get to know the character of God through His commands. His law exists to train us and shape us. Even the laws that were given as a temporary system to Israel give us a glimpse into the nature of God.
This does not answer every question, but I find that this is common with God. He does not give His truth to us in ways that we can learn quickly to walk away and live them out on our own. They require thought, life experience, humility, and time to work through. God gives it to us this way because He is concerned with a relationship, not just obedience. We must pursue His law through the relationship we have with Him, lest we terminate on the law and become just like the Pharisees.